DIPLOMATICS. — Diplomacy (from diploma, understood in the broad sense of “document”) is the science that studies public and private acts for the purpose of determining the criteria necessary to establish authenticity. Diplomatic criticism contributes to historical criticism, but it is not identical with it: so much so that a “diplomatic forgery” may correspond to historical truth and vice versa. Diplomacy makes use of the aid of other sciences such as paleography, chronology, sigillography, and legal history.
The criticism of documents for the purpose of recognizing or denying authenticity is very old: examples are cited from 590, 843, 1125, 1198 (a bull of Innocent III to the archdeacon and canon of Milan [4 Sept.]), in which norms are suggested for recognizing the features that confer authenticity on papal documents; Potestas, 365, of 1289 and many others from the 14th and 15th centuries. However, in all these cases (even in the case of Petrarch, who in 1361 dealt with alleged privileges of Julius Caesar and Nero) the documents were presented in court or in support of some right or privilege, and criticism was exercised not in the search for authenticity and truth, but in the defense of a material interest; the same may be said of the polemics of diplomacy, which after the Peace of Westphalia flooded Germany with books and pamphlets: nothing more than lawyers’ briefs and partisan critiques of criticism and churches, from which the science received no impulse.
It was Mabillon (1632–1707) who gave scientific form and organic structure to the criticism of documents, that is, contrary to the practice then in vogue, he rendered it disinterested.
The Jesuit Daniel van Papenbroeck, in the preface to vol. 2 of the Acta SS. Aprilis (Antwerp ed., 1675, pp. 1–xxx), had impugned as false the ancient documents of the French Benedictines, collected over a century in the Congregation of St. Maur, and especially those of the monastery of St-Denis, printed in 1625. Papenbroeck adhered to an excessively skeptical system and to the aphorism of Marsham that documents are the less trustworthy the older they are. MABILLON, JEAN (v.) replied to the Jesuit in 1681 with the work De re diplomatica libri VI, in which he did not assume
ON
DIPLOMATIC MATTERS
SIX BOOKS
IN WHICH EVERYTHING PERTAINING TO THE ANTIQUITY OF
ancient instruments, their material, script, style,
and scriptorium; everything relating to monograms, subscriptions,
and chronological notes; everything that pertains to antiquarian,
historical, and forensic disciplines is explained and illustrated.
WITH THE ADDITION
of commentaries on the ancient royal palatine charters of the Franks,
on the ancient court style of charters, on tablets and excerpts,
and a collation of more than two hundred new monuments.
The work is by the effort and industry of the Reverend Jean Mabillon,
Priest and Monk of the Order of St. Benedict, of the Congregation of St. Maur.
PARIS,
Published by Louis Billaine, in the Royal Palace.
1681